The Sapphire Stone Mission
by MarvelLuver
Summary: What will happen when the avengers are sent on yet another mission? Implied Clintasha, Pepperony, Thane, and possibly later on a bit of Romanogers. Lots of avengers!whump! Review, Follow, and Favorite! :D
1. Chapter 1

The Sapphire Stone Mission

While the hologram in the center of the table turned slowly around, allowing all seven of the room's occupants to see it clearly, Nick Fury was not looking at the stone, but at the other six people.

There was Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, who saw the stone as a challenge to be completed. A trophy to acquire. A mountain to climb. No mountain was too steep for the black widow.

Then of course there was her partner, and best friend, Clint Barton, otherwise known as Hawkeye. He studied the stone, taking note of it's shining blue surface, the way it curved just so at the edges. He knew that they could retrieve it, but he also noted how dangerous it would be.

Tony Stark however, did not see the danger, he saw the stone, he heard the orders. The orders to retrieve the stone were crystal clear. He would get the stone back, and he would be praised for doing so.

When Bruce Banner saw the stone on the hologram, he was taken aback. He was thinking of another stone. A certain blue rock. The tesseract. The thing that nearly destroyed the world. He knew it was important to get back, and he knew his team was up for the job.

Thor say quietly at the end of the table, looking at the stone with an almost bored look on his face. He thought to himself that acquiring the stone would be easy. He knew they'd get it back. Although he also knew of the danger behind such power. He knew it was important to control the energy within the stone. It could, if used correctly, be more deadly than the tesseract that nearly killed every living soul on earth.

Steve Rogers, known to many as Captain America. He sat there, for a moment thinking of the stone, then only of his teammates and the enemy. How the fight would play out, whether they could be stealth or end up being reckless. Of course, he knew, with Tony Stark on his side, there would be no chance of stealth. He thought for sure that by the end of the mission, that the stone would be in their possession.

"So, when do we leave?" Tony asked eagerly, jumping up from his seat.

Nick Fury gave him a shake of his head, then turned to the rest of the group, "You leave in twenty minutes, there's a quinjet waiting for you in the hanger."

He then turned and left through a sliding door that opened at his touch.

"Natasha and Clint will pilot, I'll ride, Stark flies, Thor flies, Banner rides. Stark, do _not _start anything until we get there," Steve warned, then left to gather his shield and armor.

Everyone nodded to his plans and prepared themselves. They were all in the hanger exactly twenty minutes later.

"What are we waiting for? It'll be fun," Natasha whispered to Clint as they boarded the quinjet.

"Budapest all over again," Clint teased, earning a punch in the shoulder from Natasha.

"I'll see you there!" Tony yelled into the commlink, using his suit to take off out the hanger doors, followed by a quinjet carrying the rest of the team.

**New story, testing new waters. What did you guys think of the beginning? I've never done first person points of view for some of these characters, but I think I did a decent job.**

**Honestly, I can't wait to continue this story. Chapter two will be out either as soon as I find the time orrrr... It can be out sooner based on reviews, follows, and favorites! **

**XD Hahaha! The power of the review section! *drum roll***

**Love you guys, Give me some feedback below if you enjoyed, (even if you didn't, constructive criticism welcome),**

**-MarvelLuver**


	2. Chapter 2

The Sapphire Stone Mission

Chapter 2

"I'm here, and the doors are opened..." Tony said, the frown evident in his voice.

"You think it's a trap?" Natasha spoke over the commlink.

"Probably," Tony admitted.

"Stay hidden, we'll be there soon," Steve turned on his commlink in order to communicate with the rest of the team.

"What does this technology allow?" Thor asked, placing his commlink in his ear along with Steve.

"It lets you talk to us," Clint said sarcastically, as if it were obvious. Natasha nudged him in the shoulder, a warning to play nice.

The quinjet landed in the stiff grass of the cool forest around the base where they were told they could find the stone.

"Stark, Stark, we're here," Natasha whispered through the commlink as they approached the base.

"Good," Tony replied, flying over to them casually, "There aren't cameras, before you warn me to be more discreet."

Natasha shook her head in frustration, but Clint and Steve suppressed smiles.

"Should I um... Should the other guy be helping?" Bruce asked hesitantly.

"Wait until we need him, no point if the stone is easy to get," Clint stated.

"Right," Bruce said, following them into the long hallway the doorway opened up to.

"There's two hallways ahead," Tony said over the commlink.

"Alright, Me, Bruce, Clint, come down the right. Tony, Natasha, and Thor, take the left, if you see anyone or anything, don't engage without warning us first," Steve ordered, taking the role of leader since Fury wasn't on the commlink to bark orders at them.

Tony, Natasha, and Thor were walking slowly to the end of the tunnel, Tony was hovering above the ground with his suit.

The tunnel opened up into a large cavern with a box in the bottom of the hole.

"Think it's in there?" Tony asked.

"Maybe, maybe not," Natasha replied, sizing up the situation.

"What'd you find?" Clint asked over the commlink.

"Cavern, box in the bottom, possibly holds the stone," Natasha said quickly, trying to figure out a plan.

"Why isn't anyone guarding this place?" Steve wondered aloud on the comm.

"Maybe it's booby trapped so well that they trust the traps to kill anyone who tries to steal it," Natasha said unhelpfully.

"Great," Steve said, a huff of disappointment after he spoke.

**Will they figure out the booby traps? Will they kill themselves? Nah, I wouldn't do that, OR WOULD I?! Muhahaha! This reminds me of the hunger games when Katniss is approaching the pile of supplies. I didn't even realize until after I wrote it.**

**Haha, I promise, this'll be nothing like that.**

**Favorite, Follow, and Review for the 3rd chapter sooner!**

**-MarvelLuver**


	3. Chapter 3

The Sapphire Stone Mission

Chapter 3

Natasha, Thor, and Tony were using thermo-scans on the box, checking if it was a bomb, per Natasha's suggestion.

"I doubt someone would store a bomb in here, it's abandoned," Tony told her as she carefully moved closer to the box in question.

"You're right, we should just open it without seeing if it'll blow us up when we do," Natasha's sarcasm was plain and simple, not in the mood for joking.

Her mind set was always serious, Tony rolled his eyes.

"Allow me," Tony grabbed the box, Natasha flinched, expecting an explosion.

"You just risked our lives!" Natasha yelled at him, snatching the box away from his metallic grip.

"Perhaps we should use another method," Thor suggested, grabbing the box.

"Like what?" Natasha asked, obviously more trusting of the god than the billionaire.

"This appears to be rather... Ancient," Thor began, unlatching the hook on the box's lid, "We should just open it..."

As the lid rose, a reddish glow grew from within the box, forcing Natasha, Tony, and even Thor to shield their eyes. Thor threw the box as far as he could manage.

The light suddenly dimmed.

A pitter patter came from the hall, where Clint, Steve, and a very green Bruce appeared.

"HULK, SMASH?!" Hulk yelled the question in a deep, terrifying voice.

"No, No Hulk smash," Steve said, backing away from the Hulk ever so slightly.

"What was that?" Clint finally asked, motioning to the box with a dark red stone, which was thrown from the box when Thor threw it, lying next to it.

"That was the stone," Natasha said, coming to her senses after the initial shock of a rock having enough light to fill an entire cave.

"What do we do with it?" Steve asked, offering a hand to Natasha, who gratefully took it, and followed him to where the stone now laid.

"We should take it back to shield," Tony said, hovering above the stone.

"How? If we pick it up, it'll probably do that "BIG SHINY RED LIGHT" thing again," Clint said, his humor showing ever so slightly in an ever so slightly funny situation.

"Well, what about Stark's armor?" Steve suggested, "Would that stop the stone from reacting?"

"Whoa whoa whoa, I am _not _about to become your test subject," Tony said defensively, raising his hands.

"It's either you hold it, or the Hulk could try, and I expect he'd smash it if it lit up in his hand," Thor said.

"Fine, fine," Tony finally conceded, having the eyes of all five of them glued to his metal mask.

He picked up the stone, and as they expected, nothing happened.

"I'll see you guys in the helicarrier, I'm not holding this thing for one extra second!" Tony yelled as he made a quick escape from the tunnel using his repulsers to fly back to the helicarrier.

"He's totally gonna drop it," Clint said, making Natasha shrug in agreement.

The rest of the team followed the Hulk out of the cave, where a small quinjet was waiting to pick up anyone who couldn't fly.

Thor flew to the deck, and met them as the quinjet's ramp opened.

"Where is the man of iron?" Thor requested to Fury, who was waiting expectantly for them on the deck.

"He was supposed to come back with _you,"_ Fury said in his disapproving tone.

**Where'd Tony wander off to now?!**

**Find out in the next chapter! Post a review and leave me a favorite + follow to get it here faster!**

**:D**

**-MarvelLuver **


	4. Chapter 4

The Sapphire Stone Mission

Chapter 4

"Well where the hell is he?!" Fury called after Steve, who was headed back to the quinjet to look for a red and gold tin can flying around with a red rock.

"We'll find him," Clint insisted as he followed Steve onto the quinjet.

Natasha, Thor, and Bruce decided to stay on the helicarrier to watch for thermo scans from the high tech software Tony himself helped design for the new helicarrier model.

**Doo Dee Doo Dee Doo, Line Break!**

"See anything?" Natasha and Clint were communicating over their eye pieces.

"Nothing yet, I promise, I'll tell you as soon as we find anything," Clint said, after the last three hours of Natasha asking him he'd gotten tired of it.

"Where would he go?" Steve asked, more to the controls he was gripping than to Clint.

He answered anyway, "I doubt he _went _anywhere. Not _willingly _anyway," Clint told him, focusing his attention on flipping on night-vision as the moon grew higher into the sky.

"You think someone took him?" Steve said, his shock evident in his tone, "How? His suit would-"

"Would what? I have a bad feeling something out there is more powerful than his man-can," Clint stated seriously, his eyes glancing from left to right across the window.

"But who has it out for Stark?" Steve asked, feeling somehow of balance when it came to the topic of Stark's family history. Probably because when he went under, he knew Tony's father. Now he knew _Tony. _

"Justin Hammer?..." Clint said, unsure himself, "I haven't seen that dirt bag for months, come to think of it."

"I thought he was captured during the assault on the Triskelion," Steve told him, becoming confused at his mis-information.

"He got away... SHIELD kept it quiet," Clint said apologetically, as if he'd kept a huge secret. Which he sort of had.

"Does Stark _know _that?" Steve immediately thought.

"No."

**Lalala Line Break!**

There was a stench of melting metal, a burning sensation coming from the same spot that the smell came from.

"Oh how the mighty metal man has fallen," Justin Hammer's annoying-the-crap-out-of-everyone voice came to him.

"Not you again," Tony complained, pushing himself up against the wall he was leaned against, only to find his wrists chained to the ground with a metal much stronger than his armor.

"You thought the armor was a shield to protect you from everything," Justin began, "I'm here to show you, Tony, that it's _not!" _

"Well, I'd love to do that," Tony began in his humorous, sarcastic tone, "But I'm a little busy at the moment, so if you could just order your goons to unchain me, that'd be great."

The "goons" in question stared fiercely at the broken-in-half face plate that remained after being "trimmed" by Hammer.

"Well, if they're here to imply that you'll torture me if I don't comply, they're not doing a great job, because I don't believe for a second that you'd risk your public appearance just to prove a point," Tony said, his smart-ass voice kicking into full gear.

"Which, by the way, begs the question, what shall you ask me to comply _with?" _Tony continued, "I'm on a roll." he thought to himself.

"I need you to send a message to your avengers, and tell them that if they don't drop off 100 million dollars on my doorstep by noon tomorrow, then they will never see _you _again," Justin smirked at the brilliance of his plan.

"Which doorstep? The one to your mansion? Your beach house? Or your private bowling alley? Honestly why the hell do you of all people need _money?" _

"Times are tough," Justin replied smartly, turning on his heel towards a table in the corner, which he rolled over to Tony.

It had a laptop, with a webcam attached to the top. The oovoo app was opened. _Justin Hammer uses oovoo instead of Skype? That's totally going on instagram as soon as I get out of here. _Tony thought to himself.

"Now, tell them what I requested, or I will shoot you in front of them," Justin told him, grabbing a gun from the back of his belt.

"Whatever you say, sassy pants," Tony smirked.

**LINE BREAK DUH DUH DUUUHH!**

A chorus of phones ringing went off in the bridge of the helicarrier, Natasha nearly screamed when she saw who was calling.

"Put it up on the big screen!" she yelled to a computer technician, who complied to her request immediately.

"Hello Nicolaus! Oh boy, we certainly need to see each other more often, I do so miss the times you visited my jail cell after I pissed off your widow," Justin's face expanded on the huge screen, then turned the camera angle to face a broken iron man suit with different pieces cut off, and others smoking and melted.

"Hammer," Natasha gritted her teeth in fury.

"Track it," Nick whispered to Bruce, who was already on it.

"I have a location," Bruce whispered back to Nick.

"Send it to the quinjet."

"Yep."

Tony attempted to raise his hand in a greeting, but the chains stopped him, "Hey 'Tasha."

"Hi," she said, and if Tony wasn't mistaken, he saw a tear slip down her face before she straighten up, clearing her face of all emotion.

"100 million dollars," Tony stated, as if he needn't say anymore.

Natasha sent a questioned look to Nick, who frowned.

"We don't have it," He used sign language under the table, to tell Natasha.

They were fluent in nearly every language possible.

"Well?" Hammer's annoyed voice came bursting into the speakers.

"We'll deliver it," Natasha lied, and before Justin turned off the laptop, she nodded to Tony. A signal. They had a plan.

He received the signal with a grin.

"What are you smiling about?" Hammer questioned after he closed the laptop.

"Just your kind personality," Tony quipped, smirking at the man.

"Right," Hammer rolled his eyes, "and now... _I wait!" _

He sat down on a folding chair, awaiting the message from his men that the money had been transferred to him.

**Line Break.**

"We've got coordinates, did you get them?" Natasha's hurried voice came into Clint's earpiece.

"On our way, we'll tell you when we're on our way home."

"Be careful, it's Hammer."

"He's gonna receive something alright, but it won't be the money. It'll be an arrow through his skull," Clint promised.

That settled the butterflies in Natasha's stomach a bit, "Good luck," and then her end went silent once again.

**SOOO!... Please review, because I've never done something quite like this. I absolutely loved writing it though!**

**Justin Hammer is such a... complex villain. Don't you guys think? I do.**

**Favorite, Follow, and Review for me! :D**

**-MarvelLuver**


	5. Chapter 5

The Sapphire Stone

Chapter 5

Natasha was refreshing the feed to her ear piece every possible moment, waiting for something. _Anything._

**LINE BREAK LA DEE DA DEE DA**

The quinjet landed silently in a field next to the bunker where the location was originated from.

"Bruce'd better be right about where this moron is," Clint whispered to Steve as they took positions, each on one side of the door.

Steve held up 3 fingers, then 2, they heard a metallic crash, then he held up 1. They pushed the doors opened, and gunfire flew in all directions.

**Moments earlier...**

"Anything transferred?" Justin was looming behind his computer technician's back.

"No sir," The man replied.

"Unknown aircraft landed five clicks west of the bunker," he said hurriedly.

Tony knew who it was. It had to be.

"How'd they find me!" Justin raged, then pointed to the two other men in the corner, "Load your guns, and aim at the door, anyone comes in, shoot on sight."

Tony had an idea of who was coming, probably Steve and someone else, he thought. I'd guess Clint... he continued thinking.

He also knew Clint's tactics, and they were to get just close enough to shoot. If he opened those doors, he'd be killed.

Tony could hear footsteps outside the door, he had to warn them of the guns awaiting them.

He had to do _something._

Justin's chair was just in reach of his foot, he kicked it into the wall, creating a large crashing noise.

The doors flew open, and the guns fired rapidly.

Justin ducked behind the toppled chair, and grabbed his own gun. He then continued to make his way to Tony. He unwound the chains and grabbed the mechanic.

Tony tried to get out of his grasp, but after being tied down for hours, his legs were asleep.

Justin pointed the end of the gun's barrel to Tony's head and backed into a room connected to the back of the building, as they exited the room of fighting men, he looked to his men, who now both had arrows sticking out of their heads.

"Where'd they go?" Tony heard Clint's voice.

"You're not gonna get away," Tony told Hammer quietly.

"Neither are you," Tony could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Stark!" That was Steve.

"Where the hell did he go?" Clint again.

"Back there?" Steve had probably pointed to the door of the back room.

"Worth a look, you think they left the building?" Clint answered him.

"Justin couldn't have taken him far, and they would've never gotten around us," Steve told him as the door twisted opened.

"Stop!" Justin yelled.

"Put down your weapons or I'll put a bullet through his skull!" Justin had definitely lost his mind, Tony thought to himself.

"Don't, he's not gonna do anything," Tony said, unsure himself what Hammer was willing to do.

"Tony..." Clint looked as unsure as Tony.

"Don't!" Tony yelled, as the archer dropped his bow.

"And the quiver!" Hammer called.

He dropped the quiver. Steve dropped his shield.

"Let him go," Steve glared at Justin, with vengeance in his tone.

"Now I never said I would do that," Justin told them.

"Against the wall, I'm leaving," Justin said, the guns barrel being forced further toward Tony's head.

"Barton, don't," Tony shook his head, and when it didn't work on Clint, he looked to Steve.

They did as Hammer said.

Then as Hammer circled around the two, Clint sent a wink Tony's way.

In the doorway of the bunker, there was an arrow, apparently had missed it's target during the fight and bounced off the cement walls.

But that was the thing, Clint Barton never missed.

Clint grabbed his bow as soon as Hammer was in the doorway, and clicked the explosive-arrow button on the handle.

The doorway exploded, sending Hammer flying back into the building, and flung Tony outside into the muddy, swamp-like grass of the field around the bunker.

"Wha- What was that..." Justin's vision was blurry and he couldn't see the super soldier coming towards him until it was too late, the fist had already met his temple.

"I supposed he'll wake up with a headache," Steve turned his head to the side, smirking at the downfall of Justin Hammer.

"I don't know what that was... But whatever it was, it was awesome!" Tony came through the door to the bunker with the peace sign up on his hands.

"Natasha told you we had a plan," Clint nodded at the remains of the explosive arrow in the doorway.

"So she did," Tony remembered.

"Speaking of which, she's been buzzing me for the last hour," Steve pointed to his ear piece.

"Here," Clint tossed his cell phone in Tony's direction.

Tony caught it and punched in Natasha's number, "Clint! What happened? Are you okay?" Natasha's voice came pouncing threw the phone's speaker, making Tony jump.

"Next time I call to let you know we're all good, remind me not to hold the phone to my ear," Tony quipped from the other end.

"Oh, sorry, was that loud?" Natasha apologized, though didn't seem to mean it.

"We're on our way back," Tony told her, then hung up and handed the phone back to Clint.

"Let's blow this popsicle stand," Tony turned towards the door, then turned back, "By the way... Thanks."

Steve smiled, a rare occurrence. And Clint just rolled his eyes, "Don't anger any more insane weapon manufactures, please."

"Deal," Tony said and they turned for the door, Steve dragged Justin's handcuffed, unconscious form to the quinjet, and left him tied up in the same place Loki once sat in a similar aircraft.

**LA DEE DOO DEE DOO LINE BREAK!**

"So where's the stone?" Nick asked as soon as they arrived back.

"I don't know, I woke up and it was gone," Tony told him honestly, wondering himself what Justin did with the Sapphire Stone.

"I'm making it your mission to retrieve it," Nick pointed at six of the people in front of him.

"You mean _our _job?" Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Yep, and I know you'll do it well," Fury replied, his eye winking at Natasha.

"Sir yes sir," Tony gave him a playful salute, then turned to Steve, who was shaking his head in disapproval.

"We'll be right on it," Steve said, nodding to Fury, then turning to follow Bruce into his lab, where he would no doubt, have some scientific way to track this stone down.

All six of them converged into the lab and began to either hover over Bruce and Tony, or ask stupid questions about what the tools in the lab were used for or what they did.

"Don't _touch it"! _Tony finally grabbed away his mini-dummy counter cleaner from Natasha's grasp.

**Lemme know how you're liking it so far!**

**I think this story will be around 8-10 chapters, so expect some exciting scenes to come!**

**To see the story sooner, leave me some love in the reviews, follows, and favorites! :D**

**-MarvelLuver**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The red stone hadn't been located, but Tony and Bruce had found _something._

A security camera caught sight of a bus leaving the building that Justin had been in moments before Tony had arrived.

"He must've sold whoever was in that bus the stone," Natasha deduced as the recording ended and the screen went black.

Bruce put the TV's remote down on the counter in the lab where all six of them were sitting, standing, and occasionally Natasha would catch Clint napping.

"The stone was in that bus, no question," Clint stood up from the squiggly chair he was occupying.

"So how do we find a random bus? It could be anywhere by now," Steve asked, gaining eye rolls from Bruce and Tony.

"We'll find it," Tony said, already typing away at the computer, hacking security cameras and license plate recognition.

"Found it," Bruce said from the other side of the room.

"I did too," Tony pouted, but was ignored as the group converged on Bruce, peeking over his shoulder and onto the computer's screen.

"New York? Why would they go the one place they knew we would be?" Natasha questioned.

"Maybe the stone is just that powerful, maybe whoever has it thinks they can kill us off," Bruce suggested, shrugging.

Natasha was speaking quickly into the commlink, informing Agent Maria Hill that they would need a quinjet prepped and ready to fly within the next five minutes.

"Let's go get it back," Natasha said, turning to leave the helicarrier's lab.

"Perhaps our enemy wishes to return the stone!" Thor bellowed, trying to find something positive in the situation.

Clint just shook his head in disappointment.

"Sure he does, and I'm the tooth fairy," Clint told him sarcastically, then turned to find Thor's shocked face.

"You are?!" he seemed to have believed him.

"No! Actually... Yes," Clint decided proudly.

"That's wonderful!" Thor smiled widely as he followed the rest of his team through the maze of hallways in the helicarrier.

"I'm driving, get in," Natasha ordered, taking the control's into her hands.

Everyone filed in, besides Thor and Tony, who flew.

Tony with a suit, and Thor with Mjolnir flying in front of him.

"This time I'm waiting for you people to arrive before engaging," Tony spoke through the commlinks as they all flew towards the Avenger's Tower.

"Good idea," Natasha told him, "How are we going to find this guy anyway?"

"We can't search all of NewYork, the ginger's got a point," Clint said, earning a glare from Natasha.

"I can run a scan from my suit, as soon as we're within fifty miles of the bus I can pinpoint it's exact location," Tony said, then continued to the follow the grey and silver quinjet through the air, doing loops around it to tease Natasha who was shaking her head at him through the window disapprovingly.

**Wonder what'll happen when they find that stone...**

**Hmmm... If only you could do something to find out sooner...**

**Oh wait! You can! Favorite, Follow, and Review to see the seventh chapter SOONER!**

**Thanks for the ongoing support on this story guys!**

**Let me know if you have any scene requests.**

**-MarvelLuver**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

**If you're excited to keep reading, leave a review below to let me know!**

**I'm a poet and I didn't even know it! :D**

**Enjoy!**

"I see it," Tony said after a long silence over the comms.

"Don't engage, we're coming to your location," Natasha ordered him, knowing he was someone who needed to be told twice.

"Yes, mommy Tasha'," Tony said, the eye roll obvious in his tone.

"Can it, can man," Natasha replied, earning a look from Clint.

"What?" Natasha turned to him.

"Nothing..." Clint said, looking over to Steve and Bruce, who were smirking like morons.

Clint crossed his arms.

"Get ready, I'm dropping you off and then blocking the road with the quinjet, you block the back way," Natasha instructed, flying directly behind the bus at a fairly quick speed.

"This is gonna be fun," Clint shrugged as he leapt from the opened door of the quinjet and onto the back of the bus, which stopped.

He was followed quickly by Steve, who was followed by a growing, much greener Bruce Banner.

The Hulk got behind the bus and rear-ended it, so to speak.

"What the hell?!" The group could hear yells of confusion from the men in the bus.

There were seven of them in all, they didn't even look like the evil type, Tony thought to himself.

"Give us the stone and we'll let you go," Natasha hollered from over the loud speaker system of the quinjet as the men ran out of the pried opened bus door, one of them carrying a metallic sphere.

"We didn't do anything wrong!" one of them yelled back.

"Keep it that way, give us the stone," Tony said to them.

"We earned this, Hammer said it was our job to take it to him!" the man holding the metal sphere yelled.

"Who are you taking it to?" Clint inquired.

"A man, we only have an address. Hammer called him the collector," the same man told them.

"I've heard that name before..." Natasha mumbled to herself, remembering the time she spent reading the entire SHIELD database.

"Guys, this isn't just Hammer, the collector collects things that are dangerous, really dangerous. Like, avenger extinction level dangerous," Natasha murmured over the commlinks connected to the rest of the team.

"Then we should go find him," Steve replied.

"He's never been... seen, it's always dead ends and empty buildings," Natasha said.

"Maybe not this time," Steve suggested.

"Let's go," Natasha said, "Give us the stone and the address, we're delivering it," she switched back over to the speakers.

"Give it to them, they'll kill us all," one of the men nudged the man holding the sphere toward Steve.

"We won't hurt you," Steve promised, holding out his hand.

"You'll send us to prison!" The man yelled, opening the sphere and grabbing the red stone from the container with his left hand, which was covered by a metal coated glove, and threw the stone to Steve.

"Steve wait-" Natasha said, but the stone entered Steve's outstretched palm.

Red light bursted from the stone, creating a bubble around Steve and the man who threw the stone.

The man's skin became red and cracked, then he was gone. Just like that.

Steve's skin became the same red and cracked color, but he remained.

"Drop the stone!" Clint and Natasha yelled simultaneously.

Steve did as he was told and the red light disappeared, the bubble around the now-ashified man and Steve lost it's red color and faded until it was gone too.

The other six men fled along the road, running like the devil was chasing them.

Natasha landed the quinjet and hurried over to where Tony had landed to examine the stone where Steve had dropped it.

"Are you alright?" Natasha asked Steve as she ran over.

"I'm fine, a few seconds more... and I'd be...-" Steve pointed over to the pile of ashes.

"What the hell is that thing? And can we use it for evil?" Clint joked, earning a death glare from Steve and Natasha.

"Not funny," Natasha told him.

"Kinda funny," Tony said, moving his suit-covered hand over the stone.

"Don't touch it," Steve warned him.

"Well duh," Tony said, scanning it for any known resource.

"You won't find anything," Natasha said with an eye roll, grabbing the metal glove from the pile of ashes along with the metal sphere.

She put on the glove, grabbed the stone and put it back in the sphere.

"Wait- what if!" Clint yelled at her as she carefully closed the lid, "Or just do that..."

**Favorite, Follow, and Review to see the next chapter sooner!**

**Wonder what the avengers will do with the stone... hmmm...**

**-MarvelLuver**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The Milano sped towards the tower's landing platform, and when the loading dock opened, a tree and a raccoon ran out of the ship to greet the Avengers.

"Where's the stone? Thor-ee's daddy said we'd find it here." Rocket said eagerly, opening up a stone-containment device.

"You talked to your dad?" Natasha asked Thor, who was holding the stone with the metal glove.

"Heimdall was most pleased to make this arrangement possible." Thor told her, holding the stone out to Rocket.

"Thor! Good to see you!" Peter Quill greeted him, followed down the ramp by Drax and Gamora.

"We've met?" Thor asked him.

"Well, no, but I saw you on the Terrain television kicking ass in London." Peter said excitedly, earning a proud smile from Thor.

"This is Earth?" Gamora asked Peter, looking around at the New York buildings, "Thought it'd be more impressive."

Peter rolled his eyes. People who were born on other planets never truly appreciated his home.

"The stone will be safe with us." Drax promised from behind Peter and Gamora, nodding to Tony, Steve, and Clint, who were still unsure of their decision to give the stone to the Guardians of the Galaxy.

"It'd better be." Clint said seriously.

Drax smiled, these earthlings were so outspoken, they never knew when they had said too much. _And because he could take Clint in a fight, 100%. He thinks, anyway._

"We'll be in touch once the stone is safe." Gamora informed them, turning and following the rest of the Guardians up the ramp to the Milano.

"I am groot." Groot waved goodbye.

**So I didn't really know how to end this. Things that happen when I forget to finish a fic. *facepalm***

**Hope you liked it anyway, Guardian Fluff+Avengers Fluff=The Fluffiest of Fluffs**

**Favorite, Follow, and Review if you enjoyed!**

**-MarvelLuver**


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